Michele Forto opens with the line she keeps in the margin of Experiential Facilitation 101: you can pay for a round on a challenge course, but you cannot buy good judgment. That is why Peak Experience is pointed at Estes Park this November.
Robert drives from Las Vegas to the Association for Experiential Education’s 54th International Conference at the YMCA of the Rockies. Sphere on Saturday. Bryce Sunday night. Moab Monday night. Glenwood Springs Tuesday night. Estes Park Wednesday afternoon. The conference runs Thursday to Saturday, November 12–14. Theme: ASCEND: Growing Community, Elevating Practice.
This episode is not a travelogue. Michele talks about what “elevating practice” has to mean if you actually run groups: frame the day, sequence so the activity earns the conversation, protect emotional and physical safety, debrief as if transfer depends on it, manage the person who takes all the air without making them the villain, give directions a tired group can follow the first time. Kolb is not a secret. Sticking with the craft when the weather is ugly, the CEO is watching, or the metaphor collapses, is scarce.
AEE returns to the 2024 YMCA site: 800+ acres of ponderosa, challenge course on campus, teachers, guides, counselors, professors, therapists, and researchers in the same dining hall. If an “experiential” conference could have been a Hilton ballroom, ask what you think experience is.
Includes a Moment in Leadership History: Theodore Roosevelt and the 1902 anthracite coal strike, step in when doing nothing would cost more.
Facilitation 101 cohorts: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Portland, Seattle.
Web: peakexp.org
Conference: aee.org
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